


Levels

by lookninjas



Series: Children's Work [11]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cuddling is So a Genre, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Very Brief Mentions of Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 09:38:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9378782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookninjas/pseuds/lookninjas
Summary: The VA doctor tells him that transitions are difficult, but Hux isn't sure he believes that.  He has money, a place to stay, a decent car.  His parents are healthy; his friends are all safe.  Everything should be fine.  Everything is fine.It's just that nothing has any meaning.  It's just that he always feels like he's in the wrong place, with the wrong people, doing something that will never matter to anyone at all.  It's just that everyone is selfish and no one seems to care and the only time anything seems to make sense at all is when he's with Ben and Poe, doing absolutely nothing, and the world seems somehow to square itself back up.  To level out.It's just that he has to become someone new to survive, and he isn't sure where to start.





	

It ought to be about Ben. Or Poe, perhaps, who has his vulnerabilities too, although he hides them better. But he has cracks, too. Everyone has cracks.

Except for Hux, of course. Hux does not allow himself to have cracks.

Except.

Except.

_Transitions are difficult_ , the VA doctor told him, hands folded on her desk, that same soft voice they all used. He’s seen a few like her, during his time. After the IED, especially. When they sent him back to California, he spent a lot of time talking to VA doctors with soft voices. But it was different, then. There was blood in his dreams. Sometimes it was that kid, the Marine, the one with the ears. Sometimes it was Ben, which was to be expected. Sometimes it was Finn, and that hurt a little more, but it wasn’t a surprise either. But either way. Hux had seen something, something even the First Order hadn’t quite prepared him for. It was awful. It did things to him. That wasn’t a surprise.

The idea that going back to civilian life could do things to him, too --

Well. That was just preposterous.

It’s just that nothing means anything anymore. It’s just that there’s no structure. No purpose. No plan. There are things he wants -- vague, loose ideas, something about _schools_ , the importance of schools, the building of them. Doing here what he was supposed to have been doing over there. It’s harder here. The bureaucracy thicker. More red tape. He’s no idea where or how to start. There had always been a general or an admiral or someone with some damn stars in charge of that. They gave him orders; he made things happen. Here there are suggestions. Advice. People to talk to who will in turn send him to talk to someone else who will be of absolutely no assistance but here’s someone you can contact, they might --

It’s just that nothing ever gets done. That there’s no urgency. No schedule.

It’s just that sometimes, he gets the hideous feeling that no one _wants_ to help. That with the exception of a very few earnest kids, like Finn and Rey, no one really cares.

It’s just that some days absolutely everything is horrible and nothing makes sense unless he happens to find himself in Ben’s apartment in Ann Arbor, with Poe curled up at the other end of the couch and Ben on the floor between them, and Hux watches Poe throw popcorn into Ben’s mouth (or, more often, his hair) and for a little while, Hux doesn’t feel like he’s supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else, something better and more effective and more important. For a few hours, he is precisely where he needs to be, even if he can’t entirely articulate why.

He still doesn’t understand love, not exactly. He knows it’s different for him than it is for other people. But he knows, too, that he loves his parents. That he loves Finn, and he loves Rey. That he loves Leia Organa and -- to some extent -- Han Solo (a little. Not much.)

And he loves Ben and he loves Poe and it’s different, somehow, from the way he loves other people. It’s not quite different in the conventional ways, but it is different.

And it helps. It always helps.

Which is why it’s so difficult when Ben yawns and Poe ruffles his hair (knocking some of the popcorn out) and Hux looks at the clock and realizes --

“I should go,” he says, and pushes up to his feet, and Poe glances down at Ben but Ben is staring at Hux, dark eyes wide, one massive paw reaching out to catch Hux by the ankle. He doesn’t hold him tightly; his grip is loose, and Hux could shake it off easily, but he doesn’t. His hand is warm even through Hux’s sock.

“You don’t have to,” he says, and Hux has known him long enough to know that it means _stay_. “You can if you want to, but you don’t have to.”

When Hux turns again to Poe, Poe is watching him with those terribly earnest eyes of his, and Hux is suddenly aware that he is completely outnumbered.

“It’s not --” Poe bites his lip, runs his hand through his hair. Doesn’t stop gazing at Hux with those mournful, sincere eyes. “This isn’t a proposition, or anything. You could stay in Rey’s room, if you wanted. Or we could stay in Rey’s room, or one of us there and one of us on the couch and then you in the bedroom, or however you wanted it. If you -- If, say, you were comfortable having Ben with you, and not me. Or the other way around. That would be fine too. Just… You don’t have to go, if you want to stay.”

The worst thing is, he doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to get back in his car and drive back to Detroit, back to his apartment that isn’t quite close enough to Poe’s to suit him, isn’t close enough to Grosse Pointe Woods or Northville or Ann Arbor or anyone, really, but is marginally closer to Poe. He’s spent the last several years living comfortably on his own, perfectly content to leave the base at the end of a long day and return to his own quiet space to revel in his solitude. But it’s different, now that he’s not leaving the base. Now that he doesn’t have a base to leave. He doesn’t want to be alone. He wants to stay.

It isn’t like him, and he’s not sure he should give in to it. Doesn’t know where it will go. What will happen if he does. It isn’t a proposition, but it’s a lot. It’s a lot. He doesn’t know what to do.

“I…”

Ben keeps staring up at him, hand loose around his ankle, running his thumb over the hard nub of Hux’s bones through his sock, and Hux almost wishes it was a proposition just so he could trick himself into thinking it was for them. It would be so much easier to say yes if he could pretend he was just doing it for them.

“I…” He looks back at Poe, still sitting on the couch, looks down at Ben. It isn’t like they’re getting nothing out of this, after all. Or they wouldn’t be asking. It feels good to offer comfort. He knows, he’s done it, too. It would be a relief, probably, if he were to stay. It would hurt, just a little, if he left. That, really, is what makes his mind up.

He answers the only way he can. “I trust you,” he says, and then, because it needs clarification, adds, “Both of you. I… I trust you. I’ll stay.”

The moment the words are out of his mouth, there’s a feeling that might be relief or might be nausea. It’s hard to say.

Ben smiles, pushes up to his feet. Hux misses the warmth of that hand around his ankle once it’s gone, but then Ben is holding his hand out, and Hux takes it, lets his hand be swallowed up by it, and he feels a little like he’s about to be consumed by something he doesn’t understand, and he’s sort of okay with that. “Come on,” Ben says. “I’ll find you a toothbrush and something to sleep in that’s not khakis.”

He tugs on Hux’s hand, leads him off toward his bedroom while Poe watches them from his place on the couch. Hux wonders what exactly he’s getting himself into, but it’s probably too late to stop it.

Anyway. He does trust them. Heaven help him, but he does.

 

*

 

He has slept, actually, with both of them, just not at the same time. Poe once, after the trial, when they reached victory and for the first time began to appreciate how much they’d lost; and then Ben several times, and not just when they were with the First Order. After, long after, with Snoke dead and everything so disjointed and they’d talked about what Hux had done, what he’d done _to Ben_ and Ben forgave him (although _forgave_ may not be the right word), and then somehow after they’d wound up in Ben’s bed, Hux curled against Ben’s back, wrapped around him as best he could, and Ben clung to his hand and for the first time since Hux had gotten the news of Snoke’s passing, he’d been able to breathe.

Because it had been hard for him, too. Hard to deal with Snoke’s passing, hard to realize that Snoke being in jail wasn’t going to bring Ben home, hard to deal with the damage Snoke was doing and that Hux didn’t know how to stop. But this wasn’t Snoke, and it wasn’t Ben’s to deal with, and it wasn’t Poe’s either. It’s just Hux now.

So he lets himself be folded between them -- Ben closest to the wall, practically a wall himself now, all broad shoulders and thick arms draped over Hux’s, long enough to wrap around Hux and Poe, tucked up small against Hux’s chest, hair under Hux’s chin. It’s warm, but not too warm; after all, it is February, and Hux isn’t used to February in Michigan anymore, the cold and the damp of it, the way it seeps under his skin and lodges there, chilling from the inside out. So the warmth is, really, welcome. And there’s skin, but not too much of it -- Poe’s forehead tucked to Hux’s bared collarbone, his arm over the strip of skin at Hux’s waist where his t-shirt has ridden up, Ben’s arm over Hux’s and their hands linked, pressing together against Poe’s back. Ben’s nose against Hux’s neck. Cold feet tangling together.

It turns out that Ben and Poe breathe in tandem. Hux finds himself slipping into their rhythm, actually tries to fight it for a beat or two before realizing there’s no point. Better, probably, to breathe with them.

Anyway, he’s never been one for half measures. He’s committed to whatever this is. He’ll see it through until the end, assuming it has one.

Which, now that he thinks about it, he isn’t sure he wants it to. Not to do this every day, to come home to them, let them wrap around him -- he doesn’t think he wants that. But to have the option when he does want it, to not lose that --

Poe makes a soft humming noise low in his throat and nuzzles closer. Ben sighs against Hux’s skin.

Without so much as a bit of warning, Hux feels himself on the verge of tears, eyes stinging and throat constricted. It doesn’t make sense -- there’s nothing _wrong_ with him; he’s got money and a decent apartment and a nice little car. Health insurance. His parents are doing exceptionally well and his friends are all here, safe, together. Finn will be graduating, soon, _graduating_. He has solitude when he wants it and people when he doesn’t -- he doesn’t have a job, so to speak, but he has unlimited free time and people would kill for that. It should be enough. Everything he has should be enough.

But there’s no purpose, and without a purpose, who the hell is he?

“It’s okay,” Poe murmurs, pressed up against his chest. “You’ll figure it out. It just takes time, Hux.”

He’s had three months now. Three months. That ought to be enough for just about anything.

“You’ll figure it out,” Poe says again, and Ben wraps them both up tighter, and Hux thinks --

_But what if I don’t?_

\-- and abruptly bursts into half-hysterical sobs, clutching at Poe like an anchor.

“Hux,” Ben says, wounded, and presses his lips to Hux’s spine, and Hux cries even harder because he doesn’t know how to stop. “Hux.”

“It’s okay,” Poe says again, more firmly, probably only half to Hux and then half to Ben as well. “It’s okay. Better out than in.”

That is absolutely not what that phrase means, but Hux is currently crying too hard to point it out. He shouldn’t be crying; he doesn’t know why he’s crying; he doesn’t _need_ to be crying. But he’s too exhausted to fight it, and if Poe thinks it’s for the best -- well he is healthier, emotionally, than Hux and Ben combined. So he’s probably the better judge.

“Ease up a little,” Poe murmurs, and wiggles up in Hux’s grasp until Hux is crying into his shirt and not his hair. His arm wedges itself between Hux’s back and Ben’s chest and stays there, locked in tight. “There you go. It’s okay. We’ve got you. We’re right here. We’ve got you.”

“Got you,” Ben echoes, his heavy body draping over Hux like a weighted blanket. “It’s okay, Hux. We’re right here. We’re right here.”

Which is stupidly obvious, but Hux is so almost overwhelmed with gratitude that he just cries harder, clings to Poe tighter. Because it’s true -- he is pressed between them, smothered by it, and after so long spent floating, adrift, there’s not even a trace of the usual claustrophobia. Just this steady pressure of their bodies on his, anchoring him to the moment.

“You’re okay,” Poe murmurs. “Let it out. You’re gonna be okay. We’re right here.”

He should be okay. He isn’t okay. The odds that he’s going to be okay seem both absolute and impossible. There’s nothing for him to do but trust that Poe is right and let himself keep crying until the fit is over.

So that’s what he does.

 

*

 

His eyes feel swollen and sore, and his head hurts, and he’s propped up on something very firm and warm and moving that is absolutely not a pillow, and there’s an arm like a heavy weight draped over his back, and hands moving in his hair and on his arms.

He knows he’s not dreaming. He might’ve been, briefly -- he remembers flashes of a school, crumbling, running through the hallways, Finn’s voice in the distance -- but this is real. He lets himself sink into that. The reassurance of it.

This is real. He is with Ben and Poe and they are taking care of him. The rest, for now, is noise.

“Sorry I panicked,” Ben murmurs, deep voice rumbling through his chest into Hux’s whole body and so that’s who Hux is laying on, then. It did feel a little too big to be Poe. “I didn’t -- It’s just hard, I guess. When it’s him. Not used to it.”

“You did fine.” Poe’s voice comes from higher up, like he’s sitting, maybe. Or leaning on one arm. There’s something warm and soft against Hux’s left arm, but he can’t figure out if it’s Poe’s torso or his leg. But he’s pretty sure it’s Poe’s fingers running through his hair, and then one of Ben’s hands on the small of his back, the other covering Hux’s right hand where it splays across Ben’s chest. “You did just fine.”

“Barely did anything,” Ben argues, and it’s a pity Hux isn’t awake enough to move, because he’d do something, if he could. He isn’t sure what, but. He’d do something. To prove to Ben that he did something. That he helped.

“You were there with him,” Poe says. His hand leaves Hux’s hair, probably for Ben’s. “Honestly, I didn’t do much more than that. Talked a little. Nothing that much.” He sighs. “Mostly I’m just glad he stayed. Wasn’t sure he was going to.”

Ben hums, deep and soothing. “No, it was time.” His hand runs down Hux’s arm to his elbow, then back up again. “It was -- I can’t explain it. But it was time.” His chest rises and falls underneath Hux, like waves. He never did spend that much time at sea, Navy or not. Mostly in deserts, building. Or trying to build, anyway. He should go boating some time. Kayaks, maybe. In the summer, if it’s halfway decent. Go rent a kayak and paddle around. “I just hope it helps, you know?”

“Me too,” Poe says. His hand returns to Hux’s hair.

_It does_ , Hux thinks, Ben’s voice echoing in his ears. _It helps. You help._

He has, he realizes, set a terrible example. For both of them. Really, this is all his fault. Climbing into beds with people. That’s the only thing any of them know how to do anymore. Just climbing into beds.

“If nothing else,” Poe says, and shifts, slipping down to settle back into the mattress again, adjusting the blankets, slinging one arm over Hux’s hips. “I guess at least he knows he’s welcome now. That should count for something, right?”

_It does_ , Hux thinks again, but can’t find the energy to say it. _It does help._ Ben is rising and falling like waves, and Hux is drifting, but anchored. Secure, right where he needs to be.

“I hope so,” Ben says, and his fingers slide between Hux’s, and Hux drifts away again into the black, into dreams of freshly-cut lumber and immaculate, brand-new drywall, where nothing falls apart and everything lines up flush, where the world is perfectly level and everything is where it needs to be.

 

*

 

The next time he wakes up, he’s been moved again, deposited back into the pillows. There’s a pocket of emptiness in the bed where Ben used to be, another where Poe has inched back, uncertain of his welcome. His hand is still on Hux’s hip, though.

_That should count for something, right?_

Hux smells coffee, and cinnamon. In the kitchen, Ben is singing softly

“How long until breakfast?” he asks, eyes still closed, and Poe chuckles softly, runs his thumb over the hem of Hux’s borrowed shirt.

“He says he’ll keep it in the oven until you’re ready,” Poe says, which isn’t really an answer. “No rush.”

Hux rolls onto his back anyway, shifting closer to Poe’s warmth in the process. He forces his heavy, swollen eyelids open, blinks at the ceiling. It’s dim, but then it’s February in Michigan. Everything is dim. What a horrible month, February.

“I was lonely,” he says, trying the words out. Testing them. “Is that what -- I mean, apart from everything else. The… uncertainty. The not having a plan. But also. I’ve been lonely.”

Poe relaxes a little bit, scoots over to lay next to Hux, rest a hand on his stomach. “I think so,” he says. “I mean, it stands to reason.”

Thirteen years of his life, he was part of something. Surrounded by men and women who would die for him, with him, at his side if it came to that. Three of them did die, right in front of him, nothing he could do about it. And now it’s over, and he’s retired, and he’s back here.

And he’s lonely.

Poe’s right. It does stand to reason.

“It’ll get easier,” Poe says. “And until it does, you have us. You always have us, Hux.”

It’s a large promise to make, but then maybe not as large as all that. At least not for Poe, or Ben, for that matter. Still, Hux feels obliged to say, “I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“You won’t.” Poe rests his head on Hux’s shoulder. “Want me to get you a cold compress for your eyes? You’d feel better.”

It might, but then Poe would have to leave for it, and that would feel worse. “No, thank you,” he says, and lays his hand over Poe’s. “Maybe later.”

“After breakfast,” Poe agrees, cuddling in closer. It’s strange -- not just the contact, but that it’s been sustained, in some fashion, for such a long time. Hours and hours of Poe just touching him. And Poe still wants more.

And Hux… Hux doesn’t really mind that.

It’s very strange.

“This all right?” Poe asks. He reads Hux a little too easily, sometimes. Hux doesn’t mind that either, though he often thinks he should. “Don’t want to crowd you.”

“It’s fine. It’s…” He tries to make sense of the stream of disjointed images he remembers from last night, the waves and the drifting and the weight, and finally settles on, “Grounding. It’s grounding.”

“Huh.” Poe shrugs. “Grounding. I’ll take that.”

He seems pleased, but it still isn’t enough. Hux wants it to be more than that. So he says, “It helps, Poe. It’s -- It’s helping. You’re helping.”

“Oh.” Warmer, this time. More pleased. “Oh. Well. Good. That’s the point.”

“It helps,” Hux says again, and lets his eyes drift closed just for a moment. Feels his breath falling into Poe’s rhythm, lets it happen.

It hits him, for the first time, that he is going to have to become someone new to survive this. Just like when he left with the First Order, just like when he came back home. When he joined the Navy. And now this.

If Poe and Ben wind up shaping this new person, well. There are worse influences in the world.

“You really think I’ll figure it out?” he asks, and Poe’s thumb runs along his.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I really do. It won’t be easy, or fast. But you’ll figure it out.”

“Okay,” Hux says. “Okay.”

In the kitchen, Ben keeps singing. They’ll need to get up soon. For now, Hux lays there, Poe curled up to his side with his head on his shoulder, and feels his world slowly settle into place. Not perfectly level, maybe, nor perfectly flush, but. Not falling apart, either.

It’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be called "No 'I' in Threesome," after the Interpol song, but I decided at the last minute that it didn't quite fit. A little too jokey, maybe, and I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up.
> 
> Timeline-wise, this takes place after Snoke's death and before Leia's; I'm thinking February of 2014. 
> 
> Most of Hux's dreams involve buildings in some way, either coming together or falling apart.


End file.
